*** About ***

This is an OSD (On Screen Display) GNOME component.  It displays messages
overlaid on your screen, using  shaped windows and pango for rendering.  It was
inspired by XOSD (http://www.ignavus.net/software.html).  At least the concept,
because I didn't look at the API.


*** Installation ***

  Requirements:

    - gnome-python >= 2.6.0
    - dbus python bindings (optional)

    (If you use a Debian like distro, make sure to install python-gnome2-dev
     and python-gkt2-dev packages.)

  Just run: ./configure && make && sudo make install

  Optionally, you can use a specific python version:

  PYTHON=/path/to/your/python ./configure && make && sudo make install

  WARNING: You might need to run gconftool-2 --shutdown, if you're installing
  from a running gnome session.


*** Usage ***

It uses bonobo or dbus as main API, so it's very easy to use.  Look at gnome-osd-client
to see how it works.

Alternatively, pygtk programmers may use the gnomeosd.gosd module
directly, but it lacks certain features of the daemon, such as:
	- Automatic hiding of messages;
	- Preventing messages from different apps overwriting each other.
        - Animations
        - etc.


Programs/plugins included:

  - gnome-osd-client: a simple command-line client interface. See
gnome-osd-client(1) man page for more information.

 - xchatosd.py: xchat plugin that monitors IRC messages with your name
        (usually highlighted in xchat), and notifies you on screen,
        optionally showing the full message.  You have to install this
        yourself, by copying to ~/.xchat2/.

        This gets installed to $prefix/share/gnome-osd/

        NOTE: if you have xchat >= 2.6.x with the dbus plugin then
        this functionality is integrated into gnome-osd-event-bridge.
 
 - gnome-osd-event-bridge: this is a small daemon that listens to some
   event sources: xchat (xchat dbus plugin required), evolution (dbus
   plugin required) new mail, rhythmbox/muine song change.  For GNOME
   >= 2.14, this program is automatically started on login.  For other
   systems, the program should be manually run once and GNOME session
   saved for it to start next time.

